Next-Gen IT Workforce
University Readies Students For Global Workplace; Indiana students work with German school on IT-related projects
Information Week
July 17
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Smart U.S. universities aren't running from IT's global future. They're meeting the issue head on, creating programs that not only prepare students to work in a global job market, but also show them how it can be a fascinating way to make a living. At Indiana University, 25 students thought they were signing up for a standard class on business processes, redesigning workflows for a mock U.S. auto parts supplier using SAP software. Fifteen students at the University of Brandenburg in Germany were taking the same course, doing the mock work for a German automaker. Around the 11th week of the course, the professors threw them a curve. Students came into class to learn the German carmaker was buying the U.S. supplier. All the processes they had worked on had to be redone to meet the needs of the new company, and the two groups of students, who had never communicated before, had to work together. "They needed to streamline, and they were dealing with time zone differences, language and cultural barriers, and process differences," says Ashok Soni, who helped teach the class as chairman of the operations and decision technology department of Indiana's Kelley School of Business. "This was a real-world, global situation."
Read this story at: http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=190400253&subSection=Career Development
To learn more about IU's Kelley School of Business, visit this site: http://www.kelley.iu.edu/
